Real-fast justice
If Rajasthan can do it, so can other states
AS if a rape is not bad enough, the social stigma that it brings to the victim in India is worse. But the worst is the extremely long wait for justice in the case of those who make it bold to complain.

Ban won’t work
Sustained campaign against smoking is needed
SMOKING is injurious to health. It needs to be discouraged by all means. But will a blanket ban on cigarettes in films and on television serve the purpose?
It is a hare-brained idea to ban all scenes where actors are shown smoking
cigarettes.

He made his Mark Felt
Deep Throat blows his own whistle
FORMER FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt surfacing to reveal himself as Deep Throat, the mysterious source, who helped the Washington Post correspondents investigating the Watergate scandal that brought down US President Richard Nixon, has evoked mixed reactions.

Time to look at West AsiaDanger signals from Saudi Arabia too
by Inder MalhotraOF late, this country’s diplomatic attention has been focused — for good reasons — on Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Japan and, of course, the United States that somehow enters into all other relationships. It is time, however, to devote some thought also to West Asia that is an area of vital interest to India.

Scientific bonds
by S.K. KulkarniMANY years ago, in one of my trips abroad, I met a practicing pharmacist from Karachi. He was very curious to know about the type of drugs available in India and their cost. He was all praise for the achievements of pharma industry in India and its global competitiveness while expressing his anguish about the soaring cost of drugs in his country.

AIDS virus: as mobile as India’s truck drivers
by Laurie GarrettDozens of 18-wheeler trucks idled in the hot sun along a five-mile stretch of highway outside Agra. In sight of the Taj Mahal’s gleaming domes and minarets, the truck drivers scrambled across the road, dodging camels and rickshaws, towards a dusty, smelly clusters of small buildings.

What now for Europe?
by Stephen Castle and Colin BrownTHE Netherlands has delivered a crushing “no” vote on the European constitution and plunged the EU into a crisis of confidence unprecedented in almost five decades of European integration.

Delhi Durbar
PM’s rating of govtDID
the PM go public at the Congress Working Committee meeting in grading the UPA government’s performance in the last 12 months as 6/10?
Well, it now appears that there was a communication gap between the Prime Minister and the
PMO.

AS if a rape is not bad enough, the social stigma that it brings to the victim in India is worse. But the worst is the extremely long wait for justice in the case of those who make it bold to complain. The matter hangs fire for years altogether forcing the victim to relive her misery repeatedly. That has been the norm in India for decades. In such a bleak situation it is hard to believe that life term could be handed over to rapists just 20 days after the crime was committed. But that is exactly what a Jodhpur fast-track court has managed to achieve. A German tourist was raped on May 11; the challan was produced on May 16 and on June 1 Additional Sessions Judge Praveen Kumar Bhatnagar sentenced two rapists to life imprisonment. This would be a record of sorts. Now that it has been set, other states must emulate it. As the judge has pointed out, the nature of punishment in such cases should put the fear of the law in the people with criminal mentality. Not just the quantum of punishment but also the quick dispensation of justice would be a great deterrent. One just hopes that the upper courts will be equally sensitive if the case goes in appeal there.

The Jodhpur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court, which took suo motu cognisance of the case, has also issued a series of pathbreaking guidelines to the police, the government and the courts on the handling of cases of sexual offences, which would go a long way in easing the trauma of the victims. These include formation of a special cell for speedy and scientific investigation into all sexual crimes and ensuring that senior officials heading the cells work with the district SP so that the investigation is completed within a week of the offence.

Not only that, the court has instructed the state government to give Rs 3 lakh as compensation to the victim. All this has made the German victim say that she now views India with new respect. Rajasthan happens to be one of the top destinations for foreign visitors. It is ironical that it ranks fourth among the states where the maximum number of rapes is committed. Quick justice will help Rajasthan wash some of the stigma.

SMOKING is injurious to health. It needs to be discouraged by all means. But will a blanket ban on cigarettes in films and on television serve the purpose? It is a hare-brained idea to ban all scenes where actors are shown smoking cigarettes. People have been smoking tobacco ever since its discovery by the European explorers to the New World. In other words, films are not the root cause of smoking. Films are often a portrayal of life situations. And so long as people smoke, directors may find it necessary to show it on the screen. To run a warning that “Smoking is injurious to health” every time an actor is shown smoking is to kill the joy of watching a film.

Drinking is, perhaps, more harmful as it can pauperise the addict and make him a social misfit. Tomorrow the government can come up with a ban on all scenes where drinking is shown or the actors appear in an inebriated state. Similarly, the law-enforcing agencies can come up with an argument that scenes depicting violence too should be banned. After all, there have been instances of criminals drawing their ideas from films. Someone else can demand that any scene where cutting of trees is shown should be banned. In India the biggest killer is not tobacco or liquor but untreated water, responsible for many water-borne diseases. Does this mean that the government should ban all scenes where untreated water is consumed? If the government succumbs to such pressures, it will strike at the root of artistic freedom. As it is, film producers often have to get their films certified by the official Censor Board and then by political potentates and sectarian vigilantes before they can be shown to the public. It will be cruel to add to their woes.

All this is not to make light of the problem of smoking. It is definitely a major health problem. On its part, the state has banned smoking in public places, not because it is injurious to the person who is smoking but because it is injurious to those who do not smoke — passive smokers. It is not that the film industry has not been conscious of the dangers of smoking. In mainstream cinema, scenes where smoking is glamorised are minimal. The industry can indeed be advised to refrain from showing scenes of smoking where it is avoidable. But to put a blanket ban on it will serve no purpose, except raising demands from moralists and campaigners of various other hues.

FORMER FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt surfacing to reveal himself as Deep Throat, the mysterious source, who helped the Washington Post correspondents investigating the Watergate scandal that brought down US President Richard Nixon, has evoked mixed reactions. While this takes the lid off what many see as the greatest secret in recent American political history, there are many who rue the loss of an engaging mystery. It is human nature to sustain a mystery as much as the engagement with unravelling that mystery. Were that not the case, few potboilers – and undeniably Deep Throat is the stuff of potboilers – would have a readership.

At another level, Mr Felt revealing himself has earned him both applause and opprobrium; while a large section commends his public-spirited role, there are sections that see his whistle-blowing on the Nixon White House as an act of betrayal – of the government and the FBI. The latter is unacceptable because the logic of Mr Felt’s activities upheld constitutional norms and propriety. In fact, by exposing the break-in at the Democratic Party office, he reinforced American political values. A president had to quit, but the system was vindicated.

The importance of whistle blowing, which is what Mr Felt essentially did, has grown enormously since the infamous Nixon years and has a resonance in India, too. The killing of National Highway Authority engineer Satyendra Dubey in November 2003, for blowing the whistle on corruption on the Bihar stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral highway project, is a blot on Indian officialdom. And therein lies the difference. Mark Felt lived to tell his tale. In India he may well have disappeared with no one being any the wiser. Does the name Nagarwala still ring a bell?

Time to look at West AsiaDanger signals from Saudi Arabia too
by Inder Malhotra

OF late, this country’s diplomatic attention has been focused — for good reasons — on Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Japan and, of course, the United States that somehow enters into all other relationships. It is time, however, to devote some thought also to West Asia that is an area of vital interest to India.

To the numerous reasons for according the region due importance — the continuing violence in Iraq despite the formation of an elected Iraqi government of sorts, the impending elections in Iran against the backdrop of the western objections to Iran’s nuclear plans, and the perennial Israel-Palestine issue - another important one has now been added. It is the illness of the 84-year-old King Fahd of Saudi Arabia that looks like a prelude to a delicate transition in that country. Should any uncertainty or instability arise on this score, it will be a matter of grave concern to New Delhi because of its profound impact on both oil prices and jihadi terrorism.

As Mr B Raman — a former Deputy Chief of the foreign intelligence agency, RAW, and an internationally respected analyst — points out, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been the “breeding ground” of both Wahhabi fundamentalism and jihadi terrorism. Was it a mere accident that 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for 9/11 were Saudis? Moreover, Saudi nationals are prominent among those taking part in the ongoing suicide-bombings in Iraq and in the terrorist activity by the Chechens in Russia. Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia is not finished. It is lying low and can cause havoc at the first available opportunity. The turmoil is then bound to spread to other oil-rich countries of the Gulf where nearly three and a half million Indians live and work and remit home $ 7 billion each year.

King Fahd has, in fact, been ill for a very long time, and his longevity is often attributed to the “miracle” of modern medicine. Consequently, his brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, has ruled the country for all practical purposes for more than a decade. It is, therefore, likely that whenever the time comes, the Crown Prince would automatically succeed King Fahd. But there is no guarantee that the next Crown Prince would be, or can be, chosen equally smoothly, thanks to widespread dissensions within the huge royal family.

Furthermore, Crown Prince Abdullah is only a few years younger than the ailing king. Therefore, Saudi Arabia may have to go through a second succession quick on the heels of the first. That is where the rub might lie. For, since the early fifties until now, Saudi rulers have been from among the sons of the Kingdom’s founder, Abdul Aziz. After Crown Prince Abdullah the choice would have to be made from among the grandsons. That could be problematical.

America, the closest ally of the Saudi royal family, would, of course, give it all help it possibly can. But it would run into a delicious irony because there is a clear contradiction between President George Bush’s campaign to promote democracy in the “Greater Middle East” and the Saudi monarchy’s addiction to medievalism.

Time was, especially during and after the jihad against the Russians in Afghanistan, when Saudi policies were very inimical to this country. Riyadh was supportive of Pakistan’s China-backed nuclear programme on the one hand and of Pakistani resolutions on Kashmir at the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), on the other. Some of the old habits persist, but the situation has changed more than considerably for the better.

Most Arab potentates and lifetime presidents have been telling Mr Bush that until the Palestinian issue is resolved satisfactorily the American demand for democracy has little meaning. That the Palestinians themselves have held successful elections only recently seems to be lost on West Asian authoritarians.

The duly elected successor to Yasser Arafat, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, was in New Delhi only the other day and had a cordial meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. During the time of the Vajpayee government the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular had felt that New Delhi was ignoring them and their cause because of its growing political and military relationship with Israel. Now, interestingly, some are complaining that in order to win over the Arabs and please its Leftist supporters, the UPA government is “distancing itself from Israel”.

There is absolutely no reason why this country cannot befriend both Israel and the Palestinians and play an active role in promoting peace between them. Especially now that Mr Abbas himself has said that the Palestinians have no problem with India’s purchase of sophisticated weaponry from Israel.

In the course of the greatly intensified Indo-US dialogue — especially after the March 25 statement to the effect that the US, in its own interest, would help India become a “major world power” in the 21st century — the American side often raises the question of this country’s close and cordial relations with Iran, a nation with which the US is heavily at odds. Strangely, the Americans remain impervious to the legitimate explanation that India’s friendly relations with Iran are rooted in history, civilization, culture, mutual economic need and, above all, geo-strategy.

As for Iraq, the US was disappointed when India decided not to send any troops to that embattled country, not even to protect the UN mission there.

The Congress, then in the Opposition, had supported this decision, taken primarily by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Some of his colleagues, such as Mr LK Advani, were in favour of accepting the American demand for Indian troops for Iraq.

Of late, Washington has been arguing that sovereignty having been transferred to an elected Iraqi government, India should no longer have any objection to participating in international efforts to help the Iraqis run their affairs in every sphere. India’s response is that while it is anxious to give the people of Iraq all help it can, in the present conditions in that country there can be no question of even civilian Indian personnel going there. New Delhi would be happy to impart training to Iraqi security forces, police and administrative services, provided the Iraqi personnel came here. The one important area in which Indian contribution can be invaluable is the drafting of the new Iraqi constitution. This is a help this country has given many nations and has always received kudos for it. However, it would be more appropriate if requests for help come from the Iraqis themselves rather than via the
Americans.

MANY years ago, in one of my trips abroad, I met a practicing pharmacist from Karachi. He was very curious to know about the type of drugs available in India and their cost. He was all praise for the achievements of pharma industry in India and its global competitiveness while expressing his anguish about the soaring cost of drugs in his country.

When the Indians meet their Pakistani counterparts outside their countries they behave in a different way. They share their anguish of what happens back home. It is heartening to see these days former India and Pakistan cricket players sharing their views as commentators and as coaches to young aspirants.

Time and again, Bollywood has been producing films after films on Indo-Pak themes, be it partition. Post-partition separation, reunion, love story, Hindu-Muslim relations, spying and of course, the three famous (or infamous) wars and post-war events. Yet another Hindi film has been recently released on similar lines.

Each new generation of Bollywood actors takes pride in acting in these emotionally charged pictures. All the three parties, the Indian audience, the new breed of actors and the producers (returns guaranteed) are benefited. It is said that the smuggled versions of the movies are screened across the border and they are also known to express their part of emotions.

In spite of this high Bollywood drama, rhetoric continues on the political front. The media hype of Lahore bus trip, Agra summit, cultural exchange, goodwill cricket matches and even the heart operations performed on kids continue to make news.

When all is going well, a sudden event in the valley puts everything into reverse gear. Mutual distrust, insincerity, accusation, third party negotiation, media experts on national networks giving evergreen solutions, all these suddenly start surfacing. It has become a national pastime or a Pak-centric foreign policy of “one-step forward and two-steps backwards”.

Besides sports and cultural exchanges, I was really moved by the recent appointment of Prof K.R. Sreenivasan, a distinguished scientist of Indian origin, not only to the chair of Abdus Salam Honorary Professorship but also as the Director of Aabdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, (ICTP), Trieste, Italy. ICTP was created by the Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam of Pakistan to advance the level of science in the southern world to overcome the debilitating isolation of scientists who work in developing nations.

It is a hard reality that no country can survive and prosper in isolation. The economic prosperity is tried to scientific development, and science and knowledge have no geographical boundaries or discriminations. Can India and Pakistan afford to continue with their rhetoric of political distrust or will they learn from the elevation of a scientist of Indian origin to occupy the directorship of an international institute named after a Nobel Laureate of Pakistani origin? Fifty years on, when nothing works in our relations, science can do wonders in establishing cordial relations of trust and lasting
peace.

Dozens of 18-wheeler trucks idled in the hot sun along a five-mile stretch of highway outside Agra. In sight of the Taj Mahal’s gleaming domes and minarets, the truck drivers scrambled across the road, dodging camels and rickshaws, towards a dusty, smelly clusters of small buildings.

On a typical run, an Indian truck driver will traverse one thousand miles of rough, often barely passable, roadways in a four to 10-day round trip.

During that time, the average trucker will have sex three times with prostitutes he encounters at rest stops, in red light districts and along the rural roadsides, according to surveys conducted by Dr S. Sundararaman, Director of the AIDS Research Foundation of India, in Chennai.

That pattern means the truckers are getting, and spreading the AIDS virus all over the vast Indian subcontinent.

“No place is too remote for the trucks,” Sundararaman says. “So no place is too remote for HIV.”

In rural areas of India, most people don’t know AIDS exists. Yet, officials at the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and in the Indian government are convinced that if the virus continues to spread at its current rate, India will, within six to 10 years, face an epidemic of greater scale than the cumulative total seen since 1981 in all of Africa.

A key reason for that concern is the tremendously mobile nature of the Indian work force. Native Tamil truckers pick up cargo in the southern port of Madras and haul it north to Agra and Delhi. Illiterate peasants from Bangladesh board trains to far-off Bombay, earn some rupees and return to their village. Young village girls in Nepal, their fortunes bleak, migrate by the tens of thousands, to Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay to work as prostitutes.

The pace of all this movement is accelerating as a direct result of India’s efforts to deregulate and stimulate its economy. Many cities are booming overnight millionaires are appearing, and the subcontinent’s starving peasants are pouring by the millions into the new capitalise hubs.

Hitchhiking along with the migrants and truck drivers are microbes — chiefly the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

Dr Shiv Lal, who commands the Indian Red Cross effort to monitor HIV levels in the nation’s blood supply, acknowledged that “HIV is there, in every part of the country,” though he said levels of infection vary.

“I confess, that at the rural level, it is unclear what the HIV rates are,” Lay said. “But we are assuming HIV is travelling to the general population through migrant workers.”

Lal said one-third of India’s rural labour force — some 187 million men, mostly single and sexually active — now migrate regularly in and out of urban areas in search of jobs. All this movement creates headaches for AIDS control workers because of the difficulties inherent in trying to educate moving targets, and because of the social behaviours of these mobile masses.

Psychiatrist Sundararaman has organised teams of AIDS workers to distribute condoms and survey drivers at the major truck stops on each of the three arteries out of Madras.

“The drivers tell that they usually have sex along the highways, because they can’t find parking for the trucks in the cities.” Sundararaman explained. “The women are from villages. They usually come out to the roadsides around 9:30 to 12:30 at night when the rest of their village is watching the cinemas. They tie a sari on a tree, and that’s the sign for the truckers.”

The women hop into the truckers’ cabs and provide sexual favours for 10 to 60 rupees (30 cents to 51.77) depending on the man’s desires. The men usually have 100-200 rupees ($2.95 to $5.90) at their pockets that is provided by their employers as bribe money for the traffic police and cargo inspectors.

“The drivers will try to outwit the cops,” Sundararaman said, “and use the rupees for commercial sex workers” (a euphemism for prostitutes).

Sundararaman’s research revealed that the average long-distance trucker earns 7,000 rupees ($207) a month and has “a minimum of 25 paid intercourses a month.” On average, the truck drivers stop for sex once every 180 miles.

And, his research shows, more than one-third of the truckers are infected with HIV.

Though governments officials praise Sundararaman’s privately funded project, and none questions its authenticity, there has been no attempt to duplicate his condom distribution efforts among drivers outside south-east India.

Nobody has tried to assess the level of HIV infection in the villages and rural areas. So no one has a clue where to begin in trying to tackle the vast problem of AIDS education and control. Since most adults in rural areas are illiterate and few have access to radio or televisions, government officials assume that most villagers in India are unaware that a new sexually transmitted disease exists in the world.

In the smaller cities that serve as major junctions for train and highway travel, both HIV prevalence and AIDS awareness are higher, though ignorance is still woeful.

Dr S.V. Salokhe is in charge of the government automated blood screening programme in Kolhapur. He has confirmed Sundararaman’s estimate in far-off Chennai that about one-third of India’s long-distance truck drivers are HIV positive.

“They sleep in their trucks or in huts along the roads,” Salokhe said, “and they rarely sleep alone.”

THE Netherlands has delivered a crushing “no” vote on the European constitution and plunged the EU into a crisis of confidence unprecedented in almost five decades of European integration.

Dutch voters rejected the constitution on Wednesday night with 62.6 per cent voting “no” and 37.4 per cent “yes” in a referendum, according to an exit poll. It was the second comprehensive rejection from a founder member of the EU in four days and has effectively killed off prospects of implementing the constitution in the near future and any hopes of a British referendum. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that the result raises “profound” questions for Europe.

The Dutch voters delivered a dramatic rebuff to a European political leadership which had taken public support for granted. It comes after France’s rejection on Sunday, the scale of which stunned Brussels and led to the French Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, resigning.

Given the size of the projected “no” vote, which won by an even larger margin than the 10 per cent between the “no” and “yes” in France, Holland’s vote seemed certain to precipitate a period of turbulence as the scale of the uprising against Europe’s political establishment sinks in. Turnout was large, with 64 per cent of people said to have voted.

Not only do the Netherlands and France now face domestic political turmoil, but the German government is reeling from a recent humiliation in regional elections and Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is in the middle of an acute political crisis.

Europe’s leaders now fear a domino effect and opinion polls show the “no” vote growing even in Luxembourg - one of the most pro-European nations of all the 25 member states - which faces the next referendum, on 10 July. Meanwhile, a political storm is breaking out over the euro amid reports - strenuously denied - that Germany is about to blame the single currency for its chronic economic troubles and five million unemployed.

Urged on by Britain yesterday, the Czech Republic, which still has to put the constitution to a referendum, became the first country to call for the deadline for ratification - currently the end of 2006 - to be set back. That position, which would mean putting the constitution on ice, is backed by the UK and probably Poland where popular votes would almost certainly now be lost. This would scupper a plan to press on with ratification if 20 of the 25 member states ratify the constitution. The hope is that the rest would be pressured into changing their minds.

But the Czechs’ suggestion provoked an instant row, revealing the scale of disagreement among EU leaders about how to proceed. The European Commission president, Jose Manuel Barroso, rejected the idea of a delay, urging member states not to take “unilateral decisions” before the 16 June summit.

Tony Blair will now hold emergency talks with EU leaders in the wake of the rejection to discuss the crisis which will overshadow Britain’s six-month presidency. The Prime Minister is on holiday in Tuscany until the weekend but senior officials said he would consult EU leaders by telephone over the next 48 hours.

DID
the PM go public at the Congress Working Committee meeting in grading the UPA government’s performance in the last 12 months as 6/10?

Well, it now appears that there was a communication gap between the Prime Minister and the PMO.

Obviously, the PMO failed to check the prepared text with what he had actually spoken at the CWC. In his address at the CWC meeting the PM is said to have departed from the actual text and skipped rating his performance.

However, the text released by the PMO contained the 6/10 rating. Newspapers and TV news networks went to town about the PM’s rating. Making clarifications later would have only complicated matters.

Sunil Dutt remembered

A prayer meeting for Sunil Dutt held in the Capital on Tuesday was attended by politicians cutting across party lines. He hardly had any enemy in his political life. While Sonia Gandhi came with her son, Rahul, Dr Manmohan Singh came with his wife.

In true secular traditions a Sarva Dharma Prarthana Sabha was held. Sanjay Dutt, Priya and Namrata were touched by the affection, bestowed on their father.

Hooda eyesUT post

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is eyeing for a bigger cake in the governance of
Chandigarh, which has been administered by the Punjab Governor for a considerable length of time. Hooda believes
that Haryana should also be given the post of Administrator of the Union Territory. This is all the more so as Chandigarh is the capital of both Haryana and Punjab.

Hooda’s proposal, according to sources in the Capital, is that Chandigarh should be administered alternately by Punjab and Haryana.

It adds a new dimension to the never-ending row whether Chandigarh should be made part of Punjab or Haryana. Punjab thinks Chandigarh should be designated as its capital.

Development & cooperation

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Babulal Gaur and his predecessor Digvijay Singh regaled the audience the other day at the Observer Research Foundation where a
book on “Madhya Pradesh Development Challenges” was released by the
former.

ORF Chairman R K Mishra told the gathering that both politicians from Madhya Pradesh agreed on the issue of development of the state and there was no politics in it.

When Gaur said that he was getting full cooperation from the UPA government on economic issues, former Chief Minister “Diggy Raja”, as he is popularly known, butted in and sighed “I wish the same (cooperation) was available to me”.

IN these days of financial emergency anything which threatens to further disturb the finances of the country should claim the first and the best consideration of the powers that be. It has been the cry for the last few years that our opium revenue is falling off year by year. The evil now seems to be drawing nigh faster than ever. It is time Government moved itself, and instituted careful enquiry into the facts, which are chiefly instrumental in bringing about this fall in opium revenue. This source of revenue is precarious, and ought not to be relied upon with confidence. At one time Ceylon could boast of the large revenue from the cinnamon monopoly, but by degrees it disappeared in much the same way as our opium revenue threatens to do. It seems that somehow or other the Chinese have taken a fancy to the Persian and Turkish drug: so the Indian product does not command a ready sale.